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Security report for mcleanpartnership.com

McLean Partnership · Finance · United Kingdom

Medium risk. 5 critical or high findings in Security headers, GDPR outside view and 1 other check.

Security score

65/100

Risk levelMedium

0–100, higher is better. How it is calculated

McLean Partnership is an established executive search and leadership advisory firm with over 20 years of experience, serving clients globally across multiple sectors including financial services, industrials, consumer markets, and higher education. The company offers a range of services including executive search, board practice, interim consulting, strategic advice, and equity, diversity, and inclusion advisory. The website reflects a professional and consistent brand with a clear focus on high-caliber leadership recruitment and strategic business support. Technically, the site is built on WordPress with Elementor and uses modern web technologies and SEO best practices, providing a good user experience and mobile optimization. Security posture is solid with HTTPS enabled and no obvious vulnerabilities, but lacks some security headers and published security policies. Privacy compliance is minimal with no visible privacy or cookie policies or consent mechanisms. WHOIS data is missing, raising concerns about domain registration legitimacy and consistency with the company's claimed history. Overall, the site is trustworthy and professional but would benefit from enhanced transparency in privacy, security policies, and contact information.

Scanned

NIS2 and GDPR posture

GDPR outside view
58/ 100 · Medium
Checks completed
7of 7

NIS2 Art. 21(2)

  1. (a) Risk analysis and security policies: Not visible from outside
  2. (b) Incident handling: One indicator
  3. (c) Business continuity, backups and crisis management: Not visible from outside
  4. (d) Supply chain security: Not visible from outside
  5. (e) Secure acquisition, development and maintenance, including vulnerability handling: Partly checked
  6. (f) Assessing the effectiveness of security measures: Not visible from outside
  7. (g) Cyber hygiene and security training: Not visible from outside
  8. (h) Cryptography and encryption: Partly checked
  9. (i) HR security, access control and asset management: One indicator
  10. (j) Multi-factor authentication and secured communications: Not visible from outside

This scan rated NIS2 with an earlier keyword method that is no longer shown; rescan for the per-article view. Risk management, continuity, supply chain, training, MFA, management oversight (Art. 20) and incident reporting (Art. 23) need internal evidence, and Guard cannot tell whether NIS2 applies to this organisation.

GDPR is indicative only, based on publicly visible signals: Articles 7, 12, 13 and 32 of Regulation (EU) 2016/679 and Article 5(3) of the ePrivacy Directive. Not a certification or legal assessment.

Priority findings

5 findings rated critical or high. Fix these first.

  1. Security headers

    Security headers are instructions your web server sends to every visitor’s browser. Missing ones leave visitors more exposed to attacks such as clickjacking and injected scripts.

    • High

      Missing X-Frame-Options header

      Prevents clickjacking attacks

      What to do: Add "X-Frame-Options: DENY" or "X-Frame-Options: SAMEORIGIN"

    • High

      Missing Content-Security-Policy header

      Controls resources the browser is allowed to load

      What to do: Implement a Content-Security-Policy appropriate for your application

      • ASVS V3.4.3
      • OWASP Secure Headers: OWASP Secure Headers Project recommends Content-Security-Policy: default-src 'self'; form-action 'self'; base-uri 'self'; object-src 'none';…

  2. GDPR outside view

    These are the privacy signals visitors and data protection authorities look for under GDPR.

    • High

      No Cookie Policy found

      GDPR requires clear information about cookie usage

      What to do: Add a dedicated cookie policy explaining cookie usage and purposes

    • High

      No Cookie Consent Banner found

      GDPR requires explicit consent for non-essential cookies

      What to do: Implement a cookie consent banner that appears on first visit

  3. SSL/TLS

    TLS encrypts the connection and proves the site is really yours. Weak or expiring certificates trigger browser warnings and put traffic at risk.

    • High

      Weak Protocols Supported

      Server supports weak protocols: TLSv1.1

      What to do: Disable TLS 1.0, TLS 1.1, and all SSL versions

      • CWE-327
      • OWASP A04:2025
      • ASVS V12.1.1

Need hands-on remediation? Email guard@offseq.com

Keep watching mcleanpartnership.com

This scan found 27 issues across 6 checks. Monitoring re-runs those checks daily, emails you when something material changes and records each fix, so you can show progress.

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  • TLS certificates and expiry
  • DNS records
  • SPF, DKIM and DMARC
  • Security headers
  • GDPR and NIS2 posture
  • Exposed services
  • Third-party trackers
  • Security score drift

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Results by check

Each check with its score, findings and the evidence it collected.

How this score is calculated

The security score runs 0–100, higher is better. It is the plain average of the security checks that completed in this scan, each counted equally. A check that could not run is left out: it counts neither as a pass nor as a fail.

Counted in this score

SSL/TLS
69
Security headers
25
Email security
70
DNS health
65
Network security
100
GDPR outside view
58
Average
65

Not counted

  • NIS2 outside view: Re-weights evidence from the TLS, email, DNS, network and hygiene checks, so counting it would count that evidence twice. Shown on its own.
  • OffSeq Observations: An AI reading of the site, useful context but not reproducible evidence. Shown on its own.

Findings that cap the score at 49

Each of these is serious on its own, so while any is present the site cannot rate better than high risk, however good the other checks are.

  • The certificate is not trusted by browsers
  • The website is not served over HTTPS
  • A database, remote desktop, file-sharing or Telnet service is reachable from the internet
  • The page loads a script from a compromised source
  • The domain registration has expired
  • SPF authorises every server to send mail as the domain

Partial scans

When the site blocks Guard or most checks cannot run, the score covers only the checks that ran (usually DNS and email), is capped at 75 and is shown as partial, without a risk level.

Risk levels

  • Critical0–25
  • High26–49
  • Medium50–75
  • Low76–100

Technical appendix

Business context, site observations and technical notes gathered during the scan, and the standards behind each reference.

Business context

Business profile

The company positions itself as a trusted partner for executive leadership recruitment and strategic advisory services, targeting multinational corporations and growing firms worldwide. Its business model leverages deep sector expertise and international networks, supported by sister companies specializing in HR, public sector hiring, and economic analysis. The presence of multiple related domains indicates a diversified service offering within the McLean Group. The website content and structure suggest a mature business with a focus on long-term client relationships and strategic growth. However, the lack of publicly available WHOIS data and contact details may impact perceived credibility and trust among discerning clients.

Security posture

The website employs HTTPS and modern web technologies, indicating a baseline secure environment. However, the absence of key security headers such as Content-Security-Policy and Strict-Transport-Security reduces the overall security posture. No security or incident response policies are published, and no dedicated security contact channels are visible. The site does not expose sensitive data or use vulnerable libraries based on the HTML content. The use of Google Analytics without visible cookie consent mechanisms may present privacy compliance risks under GDPR. Overall, the security maturity is moderate but could be improved with enhanced headers, policy transparency, and privacy controls.

Recommendations

  1. Implement comprehensive privacy and cookie policies with explicit user consent mechanisms to improve GDPR compliance.
  2. Publish a security policy and incident response contact information to enhance transparency and trust.
  3. Add security headers such as Content-Security-Policy, X-Content-Type-Options, and Strict-Transport-Security to strengthen site security.
  4. Verify and disclose domain registration details to resolve WHOIS inconsistencies and improve legitimacy perception.
  5. Enhance visibility of contact information including verified company emails and phone numbers to support business credibility.

Contact details published on the site

Addresses
Site observations

Automated reading of the public site. Ratings are indicative.

Business

Company
McLean Partnership
Description
We find exceptional leaders - For over 20 years, McLean has been helping clients around the world appoint high calibre leaders. We partner with organisations from sector leading multi-nationals to fast-growing small firms. And our projects range from strategic individual hires to full business build-outs.
Key services
Executive Search, Board Practice, Interim & Consulting, Strategic Advice, EDI Advisory
Content quality
excellent
Branding
consistent

Technology

Stack
WordPress, Elementor, Yoast SEO, Google Analytics, GSAP, Swiper.js, Typekit Fonts
Frameworks
Elementor
Platforms
WordPress
Performance
moderate
Mobile
good
Accessibility
good
SEO
good

Security

Observed score
85/100
Good practices seen
  • HTTPS enabled
  • No exposed sensitive data in HTML
  • No visible vulnerable libraries

Analytics and tracking

Services
Google Analytics
Tracking level
moderate
Privacy practices
basic

Advertising

Transparency
basic

Site quality

Design
excellent
User experience
excellent
Content relevance
excellent
Navigation
excellent
Professionalism
excellent
Trustworthiness
high

Key observations

  1. Website is fully accessible with rich content and professional design.
  2. No WHOIS data available, indicating possible domain registration issues or privacy.
  3. No explicit privacy, cookie, or terms of service pages detected.
  4. No direct contact emails or phone numbers found in the provided content.
  5. Multiple sister company domains linked, indicating a group structure.
  6. Uses modern web technologies and SEO best practices.
  7. No security policy or incident response information published.
  8. Google Analytics is used for tracking without visible cookie consent mechanism.
  9. No suspicious or malicious content detected.
Technical notes

Notes

The website is built on a WordPress CMS platform using the Elementor page builder and Yoast SEO plugin, indicating a modern and flexible technical infrastructure. It incorporates advanced front-end technologies such as GSAP for animations and Swiper.js for carousels, enhancing user engagement. Fonts are served via Adobe Typekit, and Google Tag Manager is used for analytics and tracking. The site demonstrates good mobile responsiveness and accessibility features. Performance is moderate with some preloading and lazy loading optimizations. However, hosting provider details are not evident, and no advanced security headers are detected. Overall, the technical implementation is robust but could benefit from additional security hardening and privacy enhancements.
Standards and sources

Reference chips under each finding point to the standard, regulation or specification the finding relates to. They are taken from the official datasets below and mapped conservatively: a finding with no defensible link shows none. NIS2 and GDPR references mark where a finding is relevant evidence, not a compliance verdict. Implementing Regulation (EU) 2024/2690 binds digital infrastructure and digital service providers; for other entities it is the most detailed public reading of the Article 21 measures. WCAG, EN 301 549, European Accessibility Act and Web Accessibility Directive references name the requirement an automated accessibility rule relates to; they are not a conformance verdict.

Retrieved 2026-10-25

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